TP-35 Servo Bot

His name is TP-35 because Notre Dame played like toilet paper in the second half, and his head looks like a roll of toilet paper. And, Notre Dame scored 35 points, which was not enough. So, boo. As per this series (which it has suddenly become) I'm showing the progress from sketch (or in this case line drawing with base color selection) through the image that will appear somewhere in the book. Rather than trying to change my style for this game, I'm just leaning hard into what I already do. I felt like I made some significant (for me) changes in my approach to drawing for Stalwart Age... for this game, I'm just grooving on what I did there but with the space theme. I guess it's still giving the game a distinctive look from a sci-fantasy perspective, even if it isn't much different from what I've been doing for the last year or so...

Happy New Year - Here's a Bazzak Warbeast

Happy New Year!

I'm enjoying watching Notre Dame play well in the Fiesta Bowl as I do some drawing... I made some vague references to several creatures in the rulebook as I write (mostly just for flavor), and one of the first is a Bazzak. So, I thought I'd draw one. I figure that the rules might only have 10 or 15 exemplar beasts with a system to randomly generate your own beasts. Since there are thousands of creatures in the Cluster, I'd rather have the toolkit in place to make them and a few examples to get you started. The bazzak would be common pack and war beasts: easy to breed, easily trained, adaptable to a variety of environments, and foundational as a 'big lizard' archetype.

Right away, I can see these in some introductory adventures, too. Smuggle some Bazzak eggs to an outpost; steal some eggs from a nest; recover a bazzak that has gone missing; there are several decent starting options here.

 

Loyal Sidekick and Co-Pilot... or something something

 

So this file is called "Chewie" on my computer, which is totally a coincidence. The two species options are either "I Don't Know" or "Not A Wookie". However, I'll warn you now: this game has no 'official' species that you choose from. You roll up a species. The idea is that when you create your character, you also create the species he or she or it belongs to. You randomly roll up the things that make your species different from others. The game is the love child of Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy, so I keep asking questions like "could I make Rocket Raccoon with this" as much as I ask "could I make Chewie"? The answer to both has been yes so far, so that's good.

I have a 30-page draft of the game going right now, so that's a good bit of headway. I have no idea how big this book might be. Stalwart Age is 32 pages, Tales of the Splintered Realm is 48... this could hit one of those page counts, or I might just try to break the bank and go for 64. I know, crazy. I want enough setting and some starter adventures that the game world feels complete enough to start with. I have a dream of one day creating a massive 100+ page monster, but I don't know if this game is that... I mean it could be, but I'm not sure if it is. I plan to let the game tell me when it's done.

On the health front, I had a scan today that revealed the cancer appears confined a few lymph nodes on my neck, so the plan is surgery in a few weeks and radiation after that. It's a process I've been through before, and this is less intense than I already faced (my doctor said getting something off of my neck is easier than getting something out of my brain, and that seems legit). Thanks for the kind words and well wishes.

First Look: Venn Golrik

First, the bad news. It has been several months of really bad news, followed by more really bad news, but I guess the worst of it is that my cancer has returned; I am going for more testing this week, with surgery and radiation likely to follow, and more intensive interventions still on the table pending lab work. So, yay me.

Okay, the glass half full view is that I'm going to have some free time... and I need something to busy my mind so I don't spend all of my spare time staring into the void. So, I'll put that void into a game and let the heroes 'pew pew' at it for me. I'm big into the Star Wars Disney + show thing, and I got a 'Boba Fett's Starship" (Slave I to the rest of us) LEGO set for Christmas, so I'm all into this vibe right now. Enter a revised version of Shards of Tomorrow. I had some notes going, and pounded out more yesterday, and this morning put together my first character design for the game. Here's Venn Golrik, my Han Solo/ Peter Quill avatar. I gave you a process look in the four stages. I should have kept a sketcbook one, but deleted it before I thought about posting this way... here you go.

Oh, Look. I'm Blogging! A few Arcane Spells

It has been a ROUGH couple of months. Ugh. 

Maybe I'll talk about it at some point, but for now, let's just talk gaming, eh? I decided to try some solo gaming at a slow crawl just for something to occupy my mind, and made a level 1 bard. I figure he can build a team to go adventuring. I decided his first set of magic will be in arcane, but looking at the spell lists, I realized that the level 1 spells don't really have a lot of useful spells. My inclination has always been to make level 1 spells that are just introductory versions of more powerful spells ("this is just a really tiny version of fireball"), but for this character, I'm been leaning in to the idea of making level 1 spells (and maybe even some level 2 spells) more about utility. You can be useful as a caster rather than straight-out nuking foes. I drafted up three spells that I'll be trying out, considering my character is going to be a 'hit and run' kind of dude.

Evanesce (Arcane I; self) Use 1 action to produce a puff of smoke at your feet; you may immediately attempt a free sneak (or sneak at +4 with existing sneak) to travel up to your move in any direction (that you can normally reach). You cannot evanesce to the ceiling or through the floor, but you could evanesce behind a nearby rock or around a corner.

Extend Shadow (Arcane I; 30’) Use 1 action to grant one character +1D6 to sneak attack damage (as a thief) for 1 turn. If cast on a thief, this grants +1D6 to existing sneak attack damage.

Glamour Weapon (Arcane I; 30’) Use 1 action to provide an illusory effect upon one weapon that makes it appear exceedingly magical and powerful for 1 turn. Those struck by the weapon must attempt an immediate morale check at -2 or flee. Those who make a successful morale check do not need to attempt this again. 

Doc Stalwart 259

Well, that's some serendipity.

I finally finished worked on Doc Stalwart #259, and it is posted to the comics archive on the Doc Stalwart blog.

This ended being a Halloween-themed issue of sorts, so it's appropriate that it is released on Halloween. However, it is also one of the earliest Doc stories I wrote; I had about half of this done for the past two years, but never could figure out how to work it in to the larger narrative I was working on, or how to work all of the various pieces in that I wanted. I think this one has had more drafts and revisions than any Doc story I've written; I spent the last several days changing just a few words at a time until I got it right where I wanted it. 

SPOILER ALERT: Read it first before continuing below. Unless you don't really care, then keep reading, I guess :)

This issue is the culmination of several stories; Jynx and Zirah were never going to be permanent residents in the comic, and I always expected them to fade into the background at some point. This issue ends one part of the larger narrative I've been working on, and the next issue is (in my head) more of an epilogue to the larger story here. I see 261 as starting a 'new' storyline, where Doc will go in search of his daughter and he and Mikah will be traversing the Null Zone. I don't know what is going to happen there yet, like I only have the broadest of strokes done, but I have a few beats I need to hit. Next issue (260) I hope will be a payoff of a few other threads I have lingering, and I hope that it feels like a complete arc when it's done. I don't know that it will be long enough to release as a 'graphic novel without all the pictures' (or whatever I'm thinking of it as), but I do want to find some way to gather the whole thing together in some meaningful way.  

Doc Stalwart Issue 258

 I had a little trouble getting this one right; it's a transitional issue, and I didn't want it to fall flat. I'm happy with how it turned out, even though it is far more character development and setting things up than it is straight-up adventure. I figure there's a lot of straight-up adventure I'm setting up...

Doc Stalwart 258